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| Strengthening
Our Presence The
MSBA has long had a presence in our State Legislature but we are now
restructuring to strengthen that legislative presence. The key person in this effort is Treasurer Sue
Holden, who has been working with the Legislative Committee of our
Board of Governors, with our Executive Committee, with LawPac, with
our MSBA staff, and with MSBA lobbyist Lloyd Grooms.
To succeed fully, however, we will need help from a great many
of our members as well. A
critical component of our legislative program is an independent LawPac. In the past LawPac has functioned only to make
modest contributions to lawyer-legislators, to the caucuses of the
political parties, and sometimes to legislative leaders. Under a restructuring proposal which will be
presented to our Board of Governors in April, the number of trustees
of LawPac would be increased and they would be actively involved in
organizing fundraisers for individual legislators as well as overseeing
LawPac contributions. We hope
to get individual lawyers personally connected to their own state
legislators. Some of that effort is already in place and
Sue has organized one fundraiser and a number of our leaders have
attended several other recent fundraisers. Funding
of LawPac will also have to change.
We will ask individual lawyers to make contributions through
credit card or debit card authorizations so that modest monthly contributions
will be made on an automatic basis. This
will reduce our administrative expenses and give us a stable funding
base. Those funds will be to make contributions as
described and to fund the LawPac administration. Part
of the restructuring occurred last year when our General Assembly
approved a restructuring of our Board of Governors, including the
creation of the Legislative Committee.
That committee, headed by Sue Holden, has been very active
this fall evaluating proposed legislation, working with sections and
committees, and overseeing and coordinating our lobbying efforts.
In the coming year, that committee will work to help create
a grassroots network of attorneys statewide that we can call on to
contact legislators when important issues are pending.
A
very important part of MSBA activities which will continue as before
is the work of the sections and committees in improving our state
statutes. During the past year I have heard from many
legislators that those efforts are appreciated.
They have confidence that our bar association has carefully
reviewed the proposed changes and that they can rely on the soundness
of our recommendations. Our
MSBA has long publicly supported adequate funding for civil legal
services. Last year we became
somewhat involved in support of the budget of the Court and this year
we are involved in assisting the Public Defender.
As I write this page, this latter effort is well underway as
President-elect David Stowman and I have made approximately a dozen
individual contacts with legislators. Occasionally
the Legislature may present issues of direct interest to the profession. Two years ago there was a proposal for a sales
tax on legal services. When
it arises again we want to be in a strong position to have our views
be heard. Recognizing
that we want to be stronger also means that we need to be even more
careful in the use of that strength.
I think that legislation which we present and support must
have three characteristics: (1) It must be deliberative. That is, any position we take must be carefully
considered and adopted by a thorough internal process. (2) It must be nonpartisan. To maintain long-term strength in the Legislature
for the things of highest importance for the MSBA, we must not be
seen as leaning toward one party or the other.
(3) It must be germane to the profession. The MSBA must husband its political capital,
expending it in matters where the Association can make a special contribution
because of special expertise. Generally,
we should stay out of issues which really are broad public policy
questions on which we have no more expertise than others. An
example of the care with which we proceed is a newly formed Sentencing
Commission (the final title has not been established). Doug Kelly has recently agreed to chair that
commission which will take a longer-term look at sentencing policies,
drug sentencing, and other issues that relate to our current prison
population. Before deciding to undertake that effort, we
carefully solicited the opinions of members of the judiciary, legislators,
and prosecutors to make sure that our efforts would be viewed as constructive. Recommendations of that commission will not
necessarily become positions of the Minnesota State Bar Association
until we have reviewed them by our established processes, but we expect
the work of the Commission to be useful to the Legislature as it considers
important policy issues in those areas. Another
element of this legislative effort comes out of discussions that we
have had over the last several years as to the role the president
of our association. Our president
should be the person who represents our profession to other constituencies,
including the Legislature, and to the public generally.
David Stowman and Sue Holden, who will follow me, have had
important roles in planning to strengthen the legislative process
and to position the president of the Association as our external representative
and they will be ready to take on that role. Having
a strong presence in Legislature is extremely important to our profession
and to our state. As president
I am calling on each of you to contribute to our LawPac, to be members
of our grassroots system, and to keep up your efforts to improve our
laws and our legal system. JIM BAILLIE is president of the Minnesota State Bar Association. A shareholder in the firm of Fredrikson & Byron, P.A., he concentrates his practice in business bankruptcy and insolvency law and related litigation and business transactions. |
